


This Fair Gift

by JustAnotherUnderstudy



Series: This Should Totally Be A Thing [43]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies)
Genre: Character Death Fix, F/M, Fix-It, Happy Ending, Light Angst, M | Olivia Mansfield Lives, Older Woman/Younger Man, Requited Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 15:17:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20048185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAnotherUnderstudy/pseuds/JustAnotherUnderstudy
Summary: James never realized that what he felt for M was far more than devotion until it was too late.





	This Fair Gift

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Sonnet 87 by Shakespeare, which is about unrequited love.

James sat on the edge of the hospital bed and stared at his hands. There were bandages on them. He had a few stitches on a few limbs and his torso was wrapped to protect some cracked ribs.

He felt old. He thought of those words he’d said to her that night he’d returned and broke into her flat, “We’re both played out.”

At the time he was sure it was an insult to her, now he wondered if it wasn’t something else. Maybe it was a plea. A plea to her to get out while she still could. A plea brought on by the abject fear he’d felt between seeing the explosion on the TV and finally seeing her in person to assure himself she truly was alive.

If it was a plea, it had fallen on deaf ears. But he should have known better. She was no quitter. For a few years there were rumors of pressure being placed on her to retire. James had, before Turkey, smirked with no little pride at how M seemed to say that she planned on dying at her desk. After that very thing nearly happened, he just wanted her out and safe.

Now he stared at his hands wondering why it took him so long to touch her and why she had to die for him to be so bold.

The door behind him opened and James barely moved. There was a time when he would never sit with a door out of his line of sight. Maybe today he hoped one of Silva’s henchmen would come and relieve him of this ache he couldn’t rid himself of, a pain he knew he would always carry.

“Alright,” he heard Tanner’s voice. “All the paperwork is done and you can leave.”

James merely nodded and stood. He had no bag to take with him, just a prescription of painkillers he had stuffed in his coat pocket.

He followed Bill from the room toward the lift.

“Would you like to stop in and she her before we go?” he asked.

James gave him a confused look.

“See who?” he asked.

“M, of course,” Bill replied, as if James would even have considered the possibility.

Bill pressed the down arrow button when they reached the lift as James scrutinized him. Did Bill think he needed to see her body again in order to have closure? It seemed particularly odd, even by MI6 standards.

“It won’t take long,” Bill said. “They aren’t allowing visitors more than about 10 minutes at a time.”

Now James was truly confused. Was M’s body in the morgue and people were coming--no, that didn’t make any sense.

“Who’s coming to see her?” James asked, feeling a little nauseated at the prospect that several days after her death people were visiting her in the morgue.

“Mallory, obviously,” Bill answered as they entered the lift. “And your friend, Kincade.”

Bill chuckled and pressed the number three button.

“Actually Kincade has been to see her quite a lot,” he told James.

James was at a loss as to what to make of this. He gave Tanner a horrified look.

“Oh, it’s not so awful as all that,” Bill said, as if he knew what James was thinking, which made it all the more confusing because what James was thinking was far worse than Tanner must have realized.

“I mean, he’s been good to her,” Bill said. “Very much a gentleman.”

James felt his mouth fall open

“Oh, don’t be like that, Bond,” Bill admonished. “I doubt she’d ever entertain the idea. Scotland is too remote, she loves the city.”

James’ head was spinning.

“She what?” was all he could manage.

He leaned back against the wall of the lift and didn’t move even when the door opened.

“Bond, are you alright?” Bill asked.

Then he stepped toward the door of the elevator and hollered out, “I need a nurse or a doctor, quickly.”

James pushed off the wall, everything suddenly falling into place. He grabbed Tanner just as a nurse arrived.

“Where is she?” he gasped.

“What?” Tanner answered in surprise.

“M,” James said, his voice sounding more like a growl now. “Where. Is. She?”

“What is wrong with you?” Tanner asked.

The nurse was pulling Bond out of the lift but he was only going along because he assumed this was the floor where M was.

“What room is she in?” he demanded.

“317,” Tanner said. “But I don’t think…”

James didn’t wait to hear Tanner’s thoughts. He broke free from the nurses loose hold and ran down the hall to the room. The nurse and Tanner were running after him, shouting at him to stop, but James threw the door open as soon as he reached room 317, and ran inside.

In the bed, a small woman with silver hair looked up, startled. When she saw him, she scowled.

“Bond, honestly, what the hell are you doing slamming in here like that?” she barked.

James stared in disbelief. Behind him, Tanner and the nurse finally caught up and Tanner began to take hold of him.

“Security’s on their way, ma’am,” the nurse said. “Don’t worry.”

James felt a shift in himself when he heard that. He wasn’t going to let some meager hospital security touch him, let alone remove him from the room.

M must have seen it because she waved off Tanner and the man dropped James’ arm. It then came down to a staring match between himself and M. After a moment, her face softened.

“You didn’t know?” she asked.

James gave his head a slight shake, suddenly afraid that any movement would break him.

“I’m so sorry, James,” she said. “I had assumed Mallory would have told you.”

“Wait, James didn’t know you were alive?” Tanner asked sounding more than a little flabbergasted.

He stepped beside James.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I only arrived last night. I thought you were told she had been revived and had surgery and, well, that she’s alive.”

There was a commotion behind the three at the door as security arrived. Tanner put his hand up to stop them, then there was a slight look between M and Bill that James nearly missed, and he ushered everyone else from the room, leaving James standing, albeit unsteadily, just inside the door.

He began taking slow steps toward her, watching her carefully as if she might vanish before his eyes. When he heard the door click shut behind him, it was as if a spring had been released inside him and he ran to her side.

He nearly grabbed her up into his arms before he became aware of himself and saw that she was still hooked up to a heart monitor and had an IV in the hand closest to him. He opted for resting his hands on the side rail.

M smiled up at him and lifted her hand to rest it on his.

“You’re alive,” he said.

He fought to keep the emotions at bay. She wouldn’t have that, he was certain. She’d always been so classically British, beautiful stiff upper lip and the lot.

“I’m sorry no one told you,” she said.

He couldn’t take his eyes off her. Just minutes ago he had acknowledged that he would never be able to get over the loss, and now she was here. It was as if he’d been given a gift, as if the Universe had finally decided it didn’t hate him after all.

“I don’t know how I would have gone on,” he finally said. “It just hurt so much.”

A gift, he thought, again. And not one to be wasted.

“I kissed you,” he admitted.

Her brows shot up in surprise.

“As you were dying,” he explained. “I kissed your forehead.”

They stared at each other again, M obviously waiting for him to say more.

“I wanted to kiss your lips, but I thought you’d be angry if I didn’t ask first,” he told her and gave her an almost sheepish smile.

M chuckled.

“That wouldn’t have been much of a kiss,” she said. “I was mostly dead at that point.”

For a moment, the ice cold fear gripped his heart again. Then he took a deep breath and calmed himself as M squeezed his hand.

“It’s alright now,” she said.

James smiled at what he thought was permission and leaned over to kiss her. When she didn’t respond right away he pulled back.

“Uh, sorry,” he stammered. “I thought that you, uh, never mind.”

“Your were serious?” she asked.

He wanted to say that of course he was serious, but how would she have known? He hadn’t even known until she was in his arms.

James nodded.

“Well, then,” M said, a wicked grin cracking across her face. “By all means, do.”

James smiled again and leaned over to kiss her slowly and gently, but then found he didn’t want to stop. M slid her tongue across James’ lips and he moaned and opened for her.

The kiss was turning more passionate and James felt himself becoming aroused. He raised his hand to her face and touched her cheek, then she slid her hand into his hair and pulled him more tightly to her.

Someone moaned, but James really wasn’t sure which of them it was, he was so lost in her touch. He began to skim his hand down her neck and it was only the feel of the heart monitor wire that reminded him he couldn’t explore as he wanted.

“Blimey!”

A man’s voice startled them and they both looked over at the door to see Kincade. Bill stood behind him, his face flushed with embarrassment.

“We did knock,” he explained.

Kincaid looked disappointed and James would have given him some quip only he was still slightly pissed off at everyone for never bothering to mention M to him at all.

Instead, he stood and took as much a possessive stance next to M as he could. He heard her chuckle at his display, his shoulders back, chest straining slightly against his shirt.

“One visitor at a time,” a different nurse spoke from behind Kincaid.

Kincaid nodded at the two of them.

“Well, I’ll, uh, wait?” he hesitated, then looked relieved when M nodded at him.

He and Bill left the room and James turned his attention back to M.

“That was some kiss, 007,” she said.

“I have many more planned,” he told her, giving her smirk.

“Well, I don’t usually care for my men to be so possessive, but I’ll let you pass, considering the circumstances,” she replied.

They stared at each other again in what James finally realized was a very comfortable silence. He thought he could get used to looking at her like this every day.

“Are you headed back to London?” M asked, breaking the silence.

“Not anymore,” he said.

She smiled, then tried to stifle a yawn.

He bent over and brushed his lips lightly against hers.

“Get some sleep,” he told her.

“But, Kincade,” she said.

“I will be taking Kincade for a walk so we can have a nice chat,” James said.

Olivia rolled her eyes at him.

“Really, James,” she admonished, but she gave him a look that he was certain held more promises than he was brave enough to ask for.

Later that evening, after making sure Kincade knew his place and Mallory had been thoroughly cursed in every language James knew, he returned to M’s side and watched her as she slept. He traced her hand gently as he contemplated the next day and the next week, but most importantly, their next kiss.


End file.
